Definition of the Antarctic and Pygmy blue whale call templates. Application to fast automatic detection

This paper deals with the automatic detection of low-frequency Antarctic (Balaenptera musculus intermedia) and Pygmy (B. m. brevicauda) blue whale sounds produced in the Southwestern Indian Ocean. A new detection method based on a matched filter is introduced. Four original match templates are presented and tested against original blue whale subspecies calls. The mathematical formulas of these templates, defined by Gaussian curve models, are provided. The detection threshold is based on the correlation coefficients. The threshold was set to reduce false detections obtained on simulated signals at various signal-to-noise ratios. We focus our work on the true detections of whale calls. Moreover, to obtain a real-time system, we decrease the computational time by decimating the recorded signal (Fs=250Hz). We show that this new method enables us to effectively detect both subspecies in various ambient noises, in the Southern Ocean.

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